by Charles Dean
Spirit Smithing: This skill allows the forming, shaping and tempering of metals using Spirit alone. The skill also increases basic understanding of metal weapons and armor. Spirit Smithing improves mana management by 5% per rank when Smithing and improves the durability, armor value and weapon damage of metal items by 2.5% per rank. Feel the metal.
Swordplay: Improves reasoning and execution with sword-related skills.
Trap Detection: This skill helps one notice the hard to see traps and devices that could very well spell about one’s end. It also improves the ability to recognize a person’s biological gender for some reason, programmers have yet to discover why.
True Patriot: The world changes from day to day, and so do the words of a statesman. The words of every message are different, but effects remain the same: Go forth and conquer. Only a true patriot can instill such inspiration in others.
Unarmed Combat: Improves one’s ability to fight without a weapon.
Locations
Birnefeld: Hometown of Brigid of Kildare and rival to Kirshtein.
CowTip: While this town sounds ridiculous, it’s because the war of eternity game creators were incredibly hungry and thinking about beef tips when they wrote this part of the questline. Please, try not to let hunger influence your own naming choices.
Farann: Miller’s home world. Located in another dimension.
Heaven’s Hammer: A wonderful bar run by humans, for humans. Heaven’s Hammer had the best beer in town previous to Lee’s interference with his divine zymurgy. It is also a great place to get hammered.
Kirshtein: The largest major city near Satterfield, part of the grand kingdom of Spicy Chicken Noodle Surprise. A great place to party, turn in bounties and get lost in a maze of alleys.
Satterfield: Within the southern kingdom of Spicy Noodle Chicken Surprise. Spicy Noodle Chicken Surprise is a kingdom founded and still being currently ruled by King Red Ramen of the guild Heroes of Eternity.
Random:
Members of the Church of Augustus: Those that are still alive have all learned how to ask the right question to the great Book of Augustus, and thus have achieved near immortality. Unfortunately, they haven’t learned to play games, thus their own god doesn’t hang out with them as much.
List of gods and their titles:
Mary God of Blood
Sord God of Rising Numbers
Angelica God of Regrets
Cadwe God of Poetry
Cadwe God of Ambiguity and Awkwardness
Nevir God of Fashion
Erik God of Spices and Smells
Chmilenko God of Uncomfortable Silences
Lenfers God of Architecture
Siegman
Recipes:
Augustusfest Beer #001: Temporarily increases your Power by 1 and your Charisma by 2. Great with schnitzel and pretzels.
Mana Water: Replenishes the drinker’s mana and health, albeit at a slower rate than Lee’s divine healing skill. Also quenches thirst, but not if you pour it on yourself instead of drinking it.
Brave Brother’s Brew: Miller’s attempt at naming a beer comes with heavy-handed and bro-oriented alliteration.
Monster Wine: The best kind of wine is one divinely made from the best enemies, and there are no better enemies than good monsters.
Traps:
Ballista: Long before the “we need a bigger gun” mentality came into play, people were already using the “we need a bigger bow” version. This is because bigger is always better when it comes to certain weapons and also because not everyone can hurl a spear on their own in the same beautiful fashion that Miller can.
Barbed Rope Cage: Barbed wire is easy to get around with the proper tools, but without them readily available, it can be much more difficult and very time consuming. In a battle, time is everything, and this seemingly-mild annoyance of a trap can be the difference between victory and defeat. However, the creator of the trap highly recommends one doesn’t tattoo the design on one’s arm.
Sweet Rides:
Krunklerump: A six-legged mammalian monstrosity that the author must have dreamed up when he was very drunk. Fortunately, it is able to be tamed and serves as a useful mount for soldiers with balls of steel.
Titles:
Cheat Code Fighter: Forget long sequences of directional pad input. The only button-pressing you’ll be doing to get this title is using your creativity, wits and stunted sense of fair play to really drive your enemies up a wall.
The Great Deceiver: If you get this title, you must have pulled off a doozy of a deception. Warning: it is advised that you check to make sure your pants have not erupted into a hellish blaze in response to your audacious lying.
The Aggressive Mile-High Chef: Only the truly affluent can afford in-flight meals these days, and it takes a real high roller and culinary expert to flambé an entrée above ten-thousand feet.
Factions:
House Tigernach: The ruling faction and family who supports the Firbolg Herald and has seized control of Kirshtein politics.
House Alastar: Human faction that Dave belonged to before being imprisoned.
Quests
Cattywampus Catch
Cattywampus Catch part 2
Monsters, Mobs, and Enemies:
Bandits: If there weren’t bandits, it wouldn’t be a game in a fantasy setting. Honestly, how are there always so many?
Bandit Leader: Because if a bandit is going to break every rule in town, he needs to find order somewhere in life. Having a good leader can give the bandit that much needed structure and discipline.
Corrupted Sloth: The name kind of explains what it is… but sure. Type it into a search engine and guess for yourself. The programmers, and the lore book writers, were both too lazy to put a real answer here.
Cragaboom: No one is entirely sure how these giant stone monstrosities were made or where they came from, but there is one thing that is clear: they like to eat people. Due to this causing a great dislike for them in anyone who isn’t one of their cultists, their origin has often been twisted into the most insulting things the local townsfolk can imagine. The most commonly-shared origin myth is that Cragabooms are animate turds, a final reminder from towering magical mountain beings that used to walk the lands that one should be careful where he poops and what he eats.
Cultists: In a world where there are actual magic-performing Heralds and gods interfering with people’s lives on a daily basis, some individuals still insist on sticking to good old random-monster worshipping. On the bright side, these cults often come with great dental plans.
Devilkin: These fire-bellied imps mimic the dragons of European lore with their ability to spit out infernal balls of destruction at will. They also tend to pop.
Dire Wolves: Larger than the original wolf, more ferocious than the ravenous wolf, these are creatures to be admired, but not domesticated. Attempting friendly relations with the Dire Wolf has led many a fan to his death.
Drill Mites: This is what happens when mosquitoes become even uglier, deadlier, and more heinous and then decide to adopt the social habits of wasps. Avoid at all costs . . . much like I’m avoiding the obvious mosquito pun here.
Gan Ceann King: This type of wicked and fierce fighter can quickly take your head just as fast as he lost his own. Be careful when crossing them, and never play poker with them. This is generally advised with anyone whose eyes and face you cannot see though.
Glubinsa: Because the words ‘slime,’ ‘blob’ and ‘acid monster’ just felt gross or lame, ‘Glubinsa’ will have to work in their place.
Krobken: The Krobken are called the ancient guardians of the Worldstone Shards, installed by the programmer at the same time as almost every other NPC. In this case, the word ancient doesn't feel right, but the lore book says so, so the game guide must adhere.
Ravenous Wolves: Because regular wolves are far too cute and cuddly to attack anyone.
Sceilewolf: A wingless sand whelp that uses every part of its body, especially while spinning
, to slice up its enemies.
Spiddlendra: Insects were scary and disgusting enough, but now they’re spitting spikes and adhesive goo that leaves the spikes permanently embedded in whatever surface they strike
Gaming Terms:
Aggro: The proclivity of a monster or NPC to attack a player or another creature. Often used within the phrase ‘draw aggro,’ which basically means to get a monster’s attention or force it to attack a certain target.
AOE: Area of Effect. This term refers to skills that affect multiple targets simultaneously, whether friendly or not. Typically, the particular skill being used determines the range of affected targets.
Buff: To increase or augment the abilities of another player or character in a game. When someone “buffs” another person, they’re making them better at their job.
Drive: (as in VR drive) The device used to access a virtual reality world.
EXP: Experience. Gained from killing monsters, completing quests and assisting other players. Necessary for increasing one’s level within the game.
LOS: Line of sight. You can’t attack what you can’t see.
Nerf: A dreaded term for many avid gamers, this is the word used to describe when a game manufacturer makes a class less potent in its field.
NPC: Non-Playable Character. Characters within games that are controlled by the computer (artificial intelligence).
PK (RPK): This term can be used interchangeably as either a noun or a verb. Thanks, 1337 sp34k. As a noun, it refers to a player killer, someone who participates in actively killing other players. As a verb, it means ‘to have been killed by another player.’
RPG: Role Playing Game. Often used as MMORPG.
VR: Virtual Reality.
MMO: Massive Multiplayer Online (game).
About the Author
Charles Dean has an English Degree and an MBA. He's worked in multiple service and sales level jobs.
He spent most of his childhood playing every story-based RPG and reading every fantasy book he could get his hands on. When he finally ran out, as the price of books and games was rather costly, he tried writing his own. The first LitRPG he produced was a simple Diablo 2 fanfic, involving the president becoming a Paladin in an epic quest to save the world from a treacherous demon's nefarious plot. Unfortunately, this book was part of a creative writing assignment for a school project and the teacher deemed it 'too violent.' It would be over a decade later until he finally had free time to begin his next attempt at a LitRPG with his original series The Bathrobe Knight.
Special Thanks
A special thanks to the amazing efforts of those who sampled the earlier, less-than-edited version of this book. We thrive on the feedback of our readers, and these proud souls stepped forward and deserve special recognition. The fearless, the brave, the beta readers:
Chris Ryan
Clifford Lenfers
Ramon Mejira
Jade Goodrich
Florian Cadwe
Kyle Satterfield
Mark Benson
Other Books by Charles Dean
The Bathrobe Knight:
Darwin, a video game addict, was sitting in his bathrobe and slippers playing his favorite MMO on a Christmas night when an uninvited guest breaks into his house to steal his belongings. After the scuffle is over he finds himself transported into one of the sword and magic RPG-style MMOs that he has always loved to play, albeit one he has never heard of, where he has to overcome trials and tribulations at every turn as he fights for his life alongside new companions.
Available on Amazon
The Bathrobe Knight Volume II:
Having gone from a simple video game addict to the leader of a band of refugees, Darwin continues to cut his way across the world of Tiqpa searching for a home. Be it his home in real life, or one for his people in the game, the sleepless warrior presses forward. Unfortunately for him, each step he makes changes the fate of Tiqpa, a fact that is not welcomed by those who inhabit the lands.
Available on Amazon
The Bathrobe Knight Volume III:
Our hero carries on down the path that has been laid out before him. He must wrestle with the task of leading a new race of Demons and grapple with a madness that threatens to completely consume him–all while working with a bounty on his head and thousands seeking to kill him.
Available on Amazon
The Merchant of Tiqpa
Tiqpa, the first VRMMO to hit the markets, has become a world in and of itself with its own burgeoning political structure and growing strife between kingdoms and players. This unknown terrain, ripe with opportunities, becomes a new frontier which Locke, a blacksmith, tries to use to pay off real-world debts. But when he is betrayed by one of his business partners, he finds himself caught between his growing lust for revenge and his very real need for capital.
Available on Amazon
The Merchant of Tiqpa 2
When a diplomatic mission goes off the rails, Locke quickly finds himself between a rock and a hard place as old urges and new desires clash to shape the life and death decisions that he is forced to make. He soon realized that a mysterious new organization is pulling everyone’s strings and calling the shots from the shadows, and it seems to have the uncanny ability to anticipate his every move. Ultimately, he must choose between saving a friend’s life or a kingdom from the brink of corruption
Available on Amazon
War Aeternus
Lee is a quiet and unassuming office worker who leads a life of solitude, comfort, and routine. Day in and day out, he shuts off his brain, keeps his head down, and goes about doing his job and minding his own business. That is, he does until a drunken god shows up randomly one day and whisks him off into another world, demanding that Lee serve as his pawn in a game between the gods. Now, trapped in a completely different world full of danger, magic, and creatures he's never imagined outside of fairy tales and video games, Lee has to figure out how to stay alive long enough to make it back home.
Available on Amazon
Books by Richard Haygood
Death Flag
Madison spends his days lugging around boxes in a warehouse while dreaming of adventure and longing to see the world. He keeps his head down, goes to work, and does his job to earn a living, but he can't help but feel that his life is passing him by with nothing that he can do to change it. Then, on the way home from work one day, he is confronted by a beautiful but vengeful woman who accuses him of crimes he doesn't remember committing and banishes him to another world as punishment.
Now, trapped in a mysterious world he didn't think existed outside of fairy tales, pursued by angry slavers and vengeful pirates, and in the company of killers and assassins, he has to figure out how to survive long enough to get revenge and make it home. The only problem is that he might not be as innocent as he thinks he is, and everyone else seems to know more about his past than he does.
Available on Amazon
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